Smoke Detectors Are My Nemesis

I know you all are on the edges of your seats for an apartment update, and I definitely have one in the works for you - if not today, then later this week. We did find something (yay!) and I can't wait to tell you all about it!

But right now, I am slowly going insane.

We're having smoke detector issues again.

In early December, we woke up in the middle of the night (because when ELSE do smoke detectors get fussy and make a lot of racket for no apparent reason?) to our smoke detector chirping every 30 seconds or so. The dog hid under the bed while we tried to silence the thing in vain. Eric was once again the smoke detector champion, getting up and trying his best to SHUT IT UP. But nothing worked. Reset buttons, test buttons, even going out to the bodega across the street in the middle of the night to get a new battery. It would quiet down for a half hour to an hour, then start back up again. MADDENING.

It continued into the morning. Eric was lucky enough to go off to work while Achilles and I were left to be slowly driven mad by relentless chirping. Maintenance finally came at about 11:00 that morning, after I had hit the reset button for the umpteenth time (so of course they couldn't actually hear the awful noise). They said it sounded like an electrical thing, like maybe some wire had come unattached, but everything looked fine so they told me to just call if it happened again. Of course, it didn't.

Until 2:45 a.m. last night.

It's back, people. It's doing it again. Every hour from 2:45 on. Chirp, chirp, chirp at earsplitting volume every 30 seconds. It interrupted our very peaceful sleep last night (repeatedly) and we are not happy about it. I'm recovering from being near death this weekend (aka a head cold) and was having my very first Nyquil-free-but-still-really-awesome sleep in quite some time, and this thing had to interfere. Now I'll probably regress and end up with pneumonia.

And the poor, poor dog might not recover. He spent the night hiding under the bed, only to be lured out this morning with a false sense of security when we both got up, the reset button was hit, and things were momentarily quiet. He had the unfortunate experience of passing the smoke detector in the hallway when it started hollering again, and he stopped DEAD IN HIS TRACKS. He did a complete about face and ran to hide and quiver under a chair in the bedroom. Every time it chirps he jumps and looks even more pitiful than he did 30 seconds before. Eric took him outside for his morning business and he nearly bolted straight through the front door to get out of here. He is now hiding under the covers on the bed. I hope this isn't doing lasting damage to a dog already demonstrating a questionable mental state. Poor thing.

So now, we wait. Maintenance has been alerted, and we were told they get in at 8:30 and will address their list of requests then. It is currently about 9:00. Of course, we don't want to push the reset button again until maintenance comes for fear of them thinking we're going crazy, but that means we might actually go crazy as we sit here and listen to this incessant chirping. Prioritize, maintenance! Our sanity is at stake! I'm actually jealous that Eric gets to walk through the "wintry mix"/freezing rain/worst-type-of-weather-EVER to work in a half hour.

Smoke detectors, man. They really have it out for me.

Update: It's 11:00 and still no sign of maintenance. Lucky Eric is long gone, I'm starting to lose it, and I fear Achilles is officially broken. The smoke detector broke my dog.

Update #2: 1:30 p.m. and still waiting. Over five hours of waiting! And wouldn't you think a malfunctioning smoke detector might be something maintenance would want to look into? If not even for my sanity, perhaps for the sake of not burning down the building? Also, Achilles is back under the covers (after an extended stint of sitting on my lap, panting and shaking). Every so often he stands up, as if considering an exit, then just falls back down in rather sad, defeated fashion.

Update #3: As of 5:00 p.m., maintenance still delights in my misery. However, I broke down pushed the reset button around 2:00 and the beeping has not resumed since then (knock on wood and all that other superstitious stuff)! I finally coaxed Achilles out from under the covers, as I was afraid he would overheat - he was REALLY hot under there, panting, drooling, the whole bit. Yet still, he refused to come until I lured him out with food. That noise really did a number on the poor thing. After about an hour he seemed to return to normal, for the most part.

Update #4: 5:10 p.m., they came! And replaced the battery. Which is not the problem. But, since I pushed the button and the thing was actually behaving itself when they arrived, they can't see that. So now they left me with "if it happens again tonight, we'll replace the whole thing." Sigh. So now we wait. This round goes to the smoke detector.